Burning two Baha'i houses for the second time in Egypt without any punishments from the Egyptian government to the attackers. The first assault happened in April 2009 without any criminal trials to the attackers, and here they come for the second time in February 22, 2011 to attack Baha'i houses in Shuraniya, Sohag.
Muslims villagers burned two empty Baha'i houses in Shuraniya, Sohag which were burned before in April 2009.
Transition and the examination shows that the fire came on the houses without a loss of life, and that the owners of the houses have lived in Cairo since the first attack on there houses in April 2009 without getting any compensations from the City of Sohag.
Baha'is are minorities in Egypt and they suffering all kind of prejudice and discrimination's because of their belief.
Law 263 of 1960, still in force, bans Baha'i institutions and community activities and strips Baha'is of legal recognition. During the Nasser era, the government confiscated all Baha'i community properties, including Baha'i centers, libraries, land for the House of Worship, cemeteries, and more.
The government requires all citizens to be categorized as Muslims, Christians, or Jews on national identity cards. Baha'is have been compelled either to misrepresent themselves or to live without valid identity documents.
In 2008 the Cairo Administrative Court ruled in three cases brought by Baha'is that the government must issue official identification documents containing a dash or other mark in the religion field.
The ruling stated that anyone who adopts the Baha'i Faith is an apostate and that the religion cannot be recorded in any civil status or other official document, because that would conflict with public order.
According to Baha'i community members, throughout the first half of 2010 the government implemented the order and reportedly issued more than 180 birth certificates and 50 to 60 national identification cards to Baha'is, all with dashes in the religious identification field. The government, because it does not recognize Baha'i marriage, and there is no civil mechanism for marriage, refused to issue identification documents to married Baha'is, unless they would agree to specify their marital status as "unmarried." According to the government, it was attempting to find a mechanism to issue identification documents to married Baha'is that would correctly identify marital status.
While the government complied with court rulings by issuing identity documents with a “dash” for religion to unmarried Baha’i, it continued to refuse to issue marriage certificates. This made it impossible for married members of the Baha'i community to obtain identity documents recognizing their marital status. The government cited its nonrecognition of the Baha'i Faith and the country's lack of a civil marriage mechanism as reasons for the denial.
During the reporting period, the government did not investigate or prosecute the perpetrators of a March 2009 attack on the homes of seven Baha'i families in the village of al-Shuraniya in SohagGovernorate. Muslim villagers, some of them related to the Baha'i villagers, attacked Baha'i houses with bricks and rocks until police dispersed them. On March 31, the attacks escalated when attackers returned and set fire to the homes, forcing the Baha'is to flee.
A newly released report by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom found a serious problems of discrimination, intolerance, and other human rights violations against members of religious minorities, as well as disfavored Muslims, remain widespread in Egypt. The reporting period marked s significant upsurge in violence targeting Coptic Orthodox Christians.
The report indicated that the Egyptian government has not taken sufficient steps to halt the repression of and discrimination against Christians and other religious believers, or, in many cases, to punish those responsible for violence or other severe violations of religious freedom. This increase in violence, and the failure to prosecute those responsible, fosters a growing climate of impunity. Implementation of previous court rulings - related to granting official identity documents to Baha'is and changing religious affiliation on identity documents for Christian converts - has been limited and subject to onerous delays.
Due to persistent and serious concerns, Egypt remains on USCIRF's Watch List in 2010. Egypt has been on the Watch List since 2002. USCIRF traveled to Egypt in January 2010 to assess religious freedom conditions in the country. The visit took place just weeks after six Coptic Christians and one Muslim were killed outside a church on Coptic Christmas eve in the town of NagaHammadi. This incident served as a wake-up call to growing sectarian tensions and other religious freedom issues. Other needed reforms also should be immediately implemented, such as removing religion from official identity documents and passing a unified law for the construction and repair of places of worship.
In addition, All Baha'i institutions and community activities have been banned since 1960 by a presidential decree. As a result, Baha'is, who number approximately 2,000 in Egypt, are unable to meet or engage in group religious activities. Over the years, Baha'is have been arrested and imprisoned because of their religious beliefs, often on charges of insulting Islam.
Almost all Baha'i community members are known to the state security services, and many are regularly subject to surveillance and other forms of harassment. Al-Azhar's Islamic Research Center has issued fatwas in recent years urging the continued ban on the Baha'i community and condemning Baha'is as apostates.
Intolerance of Baha'is has increased in both the independent and government-controlled media in recent years. In March 2009, several Baha'i homes in a village in the Sohag province were vandalized by Muslim villagers. Egyptian human rights groups immediately condemned the violence and contended that a contributing factors to the attacks was incitement by a media commentator who, during a television program, labeled an individual member of the Baha'i faith an apostate and called for her to be killed. According to the Egyptian Interior Ministry, several alleged perpetrators were arrested; however, it is unclear if they were released. More than one year after the incident, there has been no investigation or prosecution related to the attacks.
In March 2009, the Supreme Administrative Court rejected a final legal challenge to a 2008 lower court ruling that required the Egyptian government to issue national identification documents to three Baha'i plaintiffs containing a dash or other mark in the space designated for religious affiliation. Until this ruling, identification documents permitted registration in only one of the three officially approved faiths - Islam, Christianity, or Judaism - thereby effectively preventing Baha'is from gaining the official recognition necessary to have access to numerous public services, and without which it is illegal to go out in public.
Since the 2008 decision, the government has issued birth certificates to at least 120 Baha'is, documents which it previously refused to issue. In addition, approximately 20-30 single male and female Baha'is have received identity cards. However, no married couples have been able to received identity cards because the Egyptian government does not recognize Baha'i marriages. Over the past few years, some Baha'is lost their jobs and a few young Baha'is were dismissed from universities because they did not have identity cards.
In 1925, Egypt became the first Islamic state to legally recognize the Bahá'í Faith as an independent religion apart from Islam. Despite a historically active Egyptian Bahá'í community during the early twentieth century, Bahá'í institutions and community activities are currently banned by Law 263. This law came into being in 1960, seven years after the founding of the Arab Republic of Egypt, at the decree of then-President Gamal Abdel Nasser. All Bahá'í community properties, including Bahá'í centers, libraries, and cemeteries, were confiscated by the government. The current Egyptian Bahá'í community, estimated to two thousand, has also had fatwas issued against it by Al-Azhar's Islamic Research Center, which charges Bahá'ís with apostasy.
In January 2001, 18 Bahá'ís, were arrested in the city of Sohag under the pretence of having violated Article 98(F) of the Penal Code ("insulting a heavenly religion") and other possible charges, 10 of whom were held in detention for over 10 months without being formally charged.
The Egyptian government requires that its citizens identify as either Jewish, Christian, or Muslim, leaving others to either misrepresent their faith or forego valid identity documents, passports, birth and death certificates, and marriage licenses.
A May 2004 incident indicated that the Ministry of Interior has instructed officials to confiscate any identity cards belonging to Bahá'ís. The seriousness of such a matter is compounded by the essential nature of the identity card; it is linked to the ability to own property, attend university and have a business.
On 6 April 2006, human rights activists "welcomed a landmark ruling by the Administrative Court recognising the right of Egyptian Bahais to have their religion acknowledged on official documents." However, on 3 May 2006 it was reported that the Egyptian government will appeal against a court ruling in favour of the rights of the country’s small Baha’i minority..." One member of parliament, Gamal Akl of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood, said the Baha’is were infidels who should be killed on the grounds that they had changed their religion.
On November 28, 2006 the Supreme Administrative Court held a hearing on the situation of the Bahá'ís. The Bahá'ís were represented by the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) who submitted a brief which outlined the legal obligations of the government under the Egyptian constitution and international human rights law to protect the rights of freedom of belief and non-discrimination. The brief also responded to the government's claims that a recognition of the Bahá'ís would contravene Islamic Shari'a which only permitted Muslim coexistence of Christians and Jews and that Bahá'ís should be treated as Apostates from Islam.
Finally, the brief also responded to the government's claim that by allowing the Bahá'í Faith to be listed on official documents that public order would be violated; the brief noted that Bahá'ís had, for decades, been able to list their religious affiliation in their identification documents until the Egyptian Interior Ministry removed their choice in recent years and not accepted to insert the word 'others.'
On December 16, 2006, only after one hearing, the Supreme Administrative Council of Egypt ruled against the Baha'is and stated that the government may not recognize the Bahá'í Faith in official identification numbers.
The ruling leaves Bahá'ís unable to obtain the necessary government documents to have rights in their country; they cannot obtain ID cards, birth certificates, death certificates, marriage or divorce certificates, passports; they also cannot be employed, educated, treated in hospitals or vote among other things.
In January 2008, Egyptian courts have issued two rulings that, while restricted in scope, should ease some bothersome strictures. Bahais may now leave the space for religion on their identity cards blank. Ending four years of court controversies, including rulings that denied Bahaism exists as a religion.
Up till now Baha'is are still unable to obtain proper identification documents despite a legal ruling in their favor in February 2008.
Assaults committed against Egyptian Baha'is over the past several days in the southern City of Sohag. In a complaint filed in April 02, 2009 the Egyptian Baha'is called for the investigation to include those responsible for the direct incitement to the assaults and asked that the matter be referred urgently to criminal trial.
The attacks began on Saturday evening, March 28, 2009 in the village of al-Shuraniya, located in the Maragha district of Sohag, when dozens of Muslims village residents gathered outside of the homes of Baha'i citizens in the village and began chanting, "There is no God but God, Baha'is are the enemies of God." Those assembled then began pelting the houses with rocks, breaking windows and attempting to break in the Baha'i Houses.
On March 31, 2009 at approximately 7 pm, the attacks escalated when some Muslims residents of the village threw improvised firebombs and Molotov cocktails at the homes of the five Baha'i families living in the village, leading to the partial destruction of the houses.
The Baha'is said that the attackers broke or disabled the water connections to their homes to prevent them from putting out the fires. The Muslims attackers also broke into the Baha'is houses, vandalizing property inside and stealing some electrical appliances and livestock.
The attacks prompted some of the Baha'i families to flee their homes and hide in the fields until the following morning.
The police arrived during the attacks and dispersed the Muslim attackers; there was no information that any of the attackers had been arrested.
In April 01, 2009 the Egyptian police ordered the remaining Baha'is in the village to leave immediately and did not allow them to return to their homes to collect clothing, medicine, schoolbooks, money, or other necessities. Information gathered indicates that all Baha'is have forced to leave their own houses and move to another City as of the evening of 1 April.
The assaults on the Baha'is in al-Shuraniya began after an episode of the program "al-Haqiqa," aired on TV Channel Dream 2 on March 28, 2009 which discussed the Baha'i New Year celebration . The program featured a Baha'i from al-Shuraniya and Baha'i activist and dentistry professor Dr. BasmaMusa. Also participating in the program a Muslim Journalist GamalAbdal-Rahim that pronouncing all Baha'is as apostates and urges their killing.
GamalAbdal-Rahim during the program, said referring to Dr. Basma, "This one should be killed." On March 31, only hours before the homes of the Baha'is were torched in al-Shuraniya, al-Gomhouriya an Egyptian Newspaper published an article by GamalAbdal-Rahim in which he praised the residents of al-Shuraniya for stoning the homes of Baha'is in the village in the preceding days. He considered these crimes to be evidence of al-Shuraniya residents’ "protectiveness of their Islam religion and beliefs."
The Muslim leader, who claimed responsibility for the attack, is named Mohammad Youssry Mohammad. He identifies himself as the secretary of the youth committee of the village's National Party (al- Hezbal-Watany) and a teacher in the Islam religious institute of the village.
vernment requires that its citizens identify as either Jewish, Christian, or Muslim, leaving others to either misrepresent their faith or forego valid identity documents, passports, birth and death certificates, and marriage licenses. 
